Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Cont.)

Our last days in Rio were relaxed; we returned to the National Park of Tijuca for a day of hiking, waterfalls, and more hiking.  We climbed to the summit, realizing, 1) we should have brought our bug spray, and 2) hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro is not in the cards for us.  The massive forest (12.5 square miles in the middle of Rio) was pristine in its natural beauty and blissfully reclusive: unoccupied by either locals or tourists.

Before we leave Rio, a few laughs:

1. 35,000 soccer fans streamed out of the stadium post game, while vendors with coolers of beer (cerveja) attempted to sell their beverages, yelling “cerveja! cerveja! cerveja!” and thrusting cans of beer in people’s faces.  With thousands flooding past him, the vendor locked eyes with Ken and said, “You want a beer?" then right back to "cerveja! cerveja! cerveja!” without losing his methodical rhythm.  Ken, insulted, protested, “what, he thinks I’m stupid, I don’t know cerveja?”
2. Ken, trying to connect to a friend back home, when prompted about a mutually convenient time, replied, “Days of the week don’t mean anything to me.”  In response the disgusted friend retorted, “You a%$hole, don’t say that to me!”
3. In “Cheers-like” fashion, the juice bar attendants grew to know Ken’s “usual”: acai smoothie to go, no lid.  Ken barely had to sit on the bar stool and his standard order appeared without discussion.  Do you want to guess how many times Ken visited this establishment?... we’ll start the bidding at 20.
4. In addition to sanctioned public transportation there are un-marked 15-passenger, white vans that serve as supplemental transport through the city.  They are recognizable from a distance by the disheveled men hanging out the open passenger doors and screaming at people on the sidewalk to use their transport service.  We never knew exactly what was shouted in Portuguese and were leery of jumping in (definitely not in the Lonely Planet guide), not knowing their route, pricing, or safety.  However, after a long day in the park with no buses in sight, one of these vans came pummeling towards us - the man yelling to us.  We surmised: “get in my van! it is a very good van! very nice seats! get in my van! I take you to your destination!”  With no patience remaining and now willing to test our luck, we threw him $2 and jumped in next to 13 crammed locals who clearly knew we were not from Rio.  We arrived unscathed to our destination (the metro stop) and high fived: we survived!